Station Crew Looks Ahead to Busy Four Weeks

(NASA) – The International Space Station will see three new vehicles arrive and another leave over the next four weeks. On Saturday at 9:41 p.m. EDT the ISS Progress 35 cargo craft will arrive replenishing the Expedition 21 crew with supplies, hardware, food, fuel and oxygen.

On Oct. 30, the Japanese cargo craft, the H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV), will leave the station and re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere and burn up over the Pacific Ocean. The HTV arrived on Sept. 17, then was captured and berthed to the Harmony Node using the station’s robotic arm, Canadarm2.

From left are station flight engineers Robert Thirsk, Jeff Williams, Nicole Stott and Maxim Suraev. They are sharing a meal inside the Zvezda service module. Credit: NASA

Russia’s newest addition to the station, the Russian Mini Research Module 2 (MRM2), will dock to the zenith port of the Zvezda service module on Nov. 12. The MRM2 will launch aboard a Soyuz rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan on Nov. 10.

Two days after the MRM2 docks to Zvezda, space shuttle Atlantis will dock to the Harmony Node after launching from the Kennedy Space Center on Nov. 12. Atlantis is delivering new hardware to the station and will return station flight engineer Nicole Stott back to Florida.